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/lit/ - Literature


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21953497 No.21953497 [Reply] [Original]

>Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.
>Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings.
>They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing.

>> No.21953559

>>21953497
This was a truly good lecture and I wish more people kept it in mind.

>> No.21953560

Another excerpt of it that often pops in to my head years later:
>You people don't yet know what "day-in, day-out" really means.

>> No.21953564

>>21953559
True. Here's the transcript in case anyone wants to read it:
https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/DFWKenyonAddress2005.pdf

>> No.21954402

>>21953497
even when finally being called out on not criticizing faiths other than Christianity, they will still call the Bible "bullshit" and then the quran only "lies"

>> No.21954457

The only puzzles here are why anyone gives a shit about Amazing Atheist and why Twitter linking/screencapping isn't banned.

>> No.21954474

>>21953497
I don't know who is this man in the pic
I don't care to know

>> No.21954478

>>21954402
Dude you're overthinking this one

>> No.21954482

>>21953497
If I keep this lecture in mind >>21953559 but am still a steadfast atheist, what am I meant to worship?

>> No.21954520

>>21954482
>some inviolable set of ethical principles...
Basically anything that isn't material and corruptible

>> No.21954697

>>21954402
Get a grip faggot

>> No.21955713

>>21953497
i worship being a chill dude who hangs out and has fun and enjoys company and activity.... and i don't like, uhhh, see myself as unfun or life as boring. maybe he needed to relax and not take shit so serious.

>> No.21956839

>>21955713
...

>> No.21956854

>>21954474
He inserted a banana into his anus and recorded it
That's all you need to know

>> No.21956868
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21956868

>>21956854
I thought you meant DFW for a second

>> No.21956880 [DELETED] 

>>21956854
Here are some audio files on what he thought about Jonathan Franzen:
https://voca.ro/1mHDTX5NL3j6
https://voca.ro/1hB8tfOjo5DZ
https://voca.ro/1noVfvSMsifj

>> No.21956895

Here are some audio files on what DFW thought about Jonathan Franzen:
https://voca.ro/1mHDTX5NL3j6
https://voca.ro/1hB8tfOjo5DZ
https://voca.ro/1noVfvSMsifj

>> No.21957538

>>21954402
amazing atheist is a relic from the era circa 2007-2014 where internet atheists actually did rail against islam quite a bit and would constantly do stunts like drawing muhammad etc
no idea if he's still like that, maybe not, haven't watched anything from him in a decade

>> No.21957559

>>21953497
DFW was legit man

>> No.21957573

>>21957538
>no idea if he's still like that, maybe not,
He's a full on degenerate tranny supporter now. Zero edge (unless it's against Christians, predictably).

>> No.21957576

Why does this dumbassws tweets keep getting posted here? This isn't literature this is a faggot on Twitter

>> No.21957603

>>21956895
lol

I genuinely just checked if Franzen had married the coffee table woman.

>> No.21957605

>>21957538
>>21957573
He's a mentally ill faggot who stuck a banana up his ass on a stream, also, he has a microcock.

Fucking loser 100%, which is why he is popular on Twitter.

>> No.21958213
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21958213

>>21957538
>drawing muhammad
>no idea if he's still like that

>> No.21958513

>>21956895
I thought they were sort of frenemies lol Freedom was pretty good. Couldn't get through Corrections.

>> No.21958533

>>21954482
The general idea is really to just have a set of good values and don't be piece of shit or a degenerate just because you can.

>> No.21958594

>>21954482
If you read or listen to the rest of the lecture, you'll learn that his answer was a postmodern religion he strived to create. The basic idea was that a college educated irreligious person could use their interpretive abilities and critical thinking to humble themselves before the range of possible explanations for their own actions and the actions of others. In other words, you could create meaning in the absence of God or whatever simply by finding new ways to understand what's around you.

Of course, this is worshipping creative thinking, and it is being pitched to you by a man who constantly feared that he was unoriginal and not artistic or creative or interesting enough. He probably slept with a girl from the listening audience that night. He often bragged about being put on this earth to put his penis into as many women as possible, and claimed he could do so because he was such an attentive and insightful listener that women found him irresistible. Of course, he had a narcissistic mother whose love he never won even from a thousand girls pussys.

He also killed himself, but that probably had more to do with switching antidepressants at the end than anything else.

>> No.21958829

>>21958594
>Jonathan Franzen
It was only the end because he switched anti-depressents

>> No.21958925

>>21956868
DFE autoerotic asphyxiated himself